June 17th, 2010

I just wanted to do a quick post to let you know a few new guidelines/rules we have for content posted here on Figment.

1. Let’s refrain from trying to out-gross the competition. We’re all for allowing people a lot of leeway and we understand that it’s hard to dictate taste. After all what one person finds disgusting someone else may find funny, but remember when your albums are in the Recent Additions they aren’t filtered for offensive material so anyone can view them. With that in mind, if you’re thinking about creating a band with a crude name or an album cover with a mutilated sexual appendage, please refrain, because from now on we’re not going to mess around and it will be deleted. If you continue to create it, we’ll delete your account. Let’s all try to take into account the feelings of our fellow players and exercise a little restraint.

2. We love that our players are creative. Imagination is the crux of Figment and we try our best not to limit it in any way. However, we do have some guidelines on what we will allow. As you know, we recently created a new rule that banned cover albums. We are now announcing that videos are not allowed. Why? Because although you can be creative in the video description, we don’t feel it has enough of a design component to make it fit with Figment. After all, with a fake album you have to design a cover, while a video requires nothing more than an image. If you want to release a video we suggest you make it part of a DVD or boxed set, and please put some creativity into the design of it’s packaging. We’re open to you creating new ways to market your bands and satisfy your fans thirst for new products (in the past we’ve allowed video games, magazines, merchandise and posters to be released), but all of them must involve an element of design. If you considering a new product and you’re not sure if it will fly feel free to run it by us by using the feedback link at the bottom of every page on the site.

3. Shout Boxes are not really for shouting! As I’m sure you aware, marketing is a big part of Figment. Getting the word out to people about your bands and their albums is an important skill that you need to master if you are going to be a top player. That’s one of the reasons we placed Shout Boxes on every band page. It’s a way for you to communicate with other players by leaving feedback on their bands, telling them about a new release or providing encouragement. While we’ve always promoted the idea of using the shout box for marketing purposes, we’ve also preached against its abuse. Lately we’ve seen a number of players who stretch the boundaries of shout box etiquette by pressuring people to buy/listen to their albums, fan their bands or even strike a “I’ll buy yours if you buy mine” type of deal. I want to make it clear that this is an abuse of shout box protocol and effective immediately we’re going to begin levying lucre fines of 50 lucre per shout on those players who leave messages of this type. So what can you say? How about a simple “Have you checked out my latest album?” and leave it at that. How about just telling someone you like what they’ve created and leave it to them to decide if they like what you’ve created. Try striking up a friendship or helping someone out with some useful advice or critiques. Pressuring people into becoming a fan or buying/listening to an album is not what the Shout Box is designed for, nor is leaving messages asking another player to return to listen to an album in an attempt to drive your album up the charts. It’s a manipulation of the rules and you will be fined. Instead of just using the shout box as an annoying megaphone or vuvuzela (couldn’t resist), try publishing news about your band, creating a tour that promotes the album or merely use the shout box judiciously. Don’t forget your current fans are already being alerted to band’s album releases via email. Do you really want to annoy them with more marketing noise?

We hope you will read these guidelines and new rules and take them to heart. Figment is a game for everyone and we are committed to keeping it as level a playing field as possible. If you have any feedback on these guidelines please comment below. We welcome your feedback.

8 Responses to “A Few New Guidelines & Rules”

I like the new guidelines, especially the suggestions for use of the Shout Box. Nothing turns me off more than when someone constantly uses it (or reviews of albums) to tell me listen to their stuff. I’m sure I do miss some good albums, but I do try to look at everything. When I see something that is well done (either artistically, thematically, etc) I will buy it. If I get pestered to buy or listen to something, I’m considerably less likely to follow that suggestion. In real life I don’t blindly eat what the radio shoves down my throat…I ain’t gonna do it here either.
Keep up the great work everyone. There is a ton of creativity going on on Figment and I dig watching how some players progress and evolve.

I have to make the point that there has to be some advertising of bands. Maybe once on a new users band with a review just to get heard. That’s how I found a lot of the bands I’m into on the site, and it kept me hooked and made me a frequent user. I admit that getting constant spam of the stuff is annoys the living daylights out of me, but if I just see someone trying to get something new out there, someone who doesn’t do it all the time, it catches my eye and I want to check it out. Advertising is a really intricate part of the real music community and it needs to be a part of Figment as well.

Algoreyou – We don’t disagree, but you’re missing the point. We said above you can alert people to check out a band you think they might like. What we don’t want though is this constant pushing of people to buy or listen to an album. We’ve had players literally leave messages asking someone why they didn’t listen to an album they bought. That’s a violation of shoutbox etiquette and is now against the rules. So while advertising something is fine, pushing people is not. I hope you understand the distinction we’re making.